Neo-nazis Miss The Point In Robert Crumb's Cartoons

October 09, 1994|By David Armstrong, San Francisco Examiner.

SAN FRANCISCO — Robert Crumb, the much-loved counterculture cartoonist who created Mr. Natural and a host of other memorable characters, has been published in places high and low all over the world. But he had never been published in a neo-Nazi publication-until now.

Two of Crumb's most provocative stories were recently reprinted in a white supremacist magazine, igniting a firestorm of controversy about racial and ethnic stereotypes and sparking a debate about the limits of satire.

The explosive nature of Crumb's stories can be seen in their titles: "When the Niggers Take Over America" and "When the Goddamn Jews Take Over America."

Both stories, first published in the underground comic book "Weirdo," were reprinted-without Crumb's knowledge or permission-in Race & Reality, a white power magazine based in Massachusetts and circulated internationally. The publishers of Race & Reality, who did not return the San Francisco Examiner's phone calls, evidently took Crumb's very broad stereotypes of blacks and Jews literally and figured they'd found a kindred soul. The cover of a recent issue of the magazine carries the headline "The Final Solution: No Apologies, No Regrets," next to a drawing of a pistol-a swastika on its barrel-pointed at the reader.

One Crumb story reprinted in Race & Reality details the rise of money-grubbing Jewish businessmen, the ravishing of a blond "shiksa" by her Jewish psychiatrist and the ultimate, apocalyptic triumph of Aryan supermen. Another issue of the magazine includes Crumb's tale of a violent revolution in which black terrorists murder white men, rape white women and force white slaves into the fields to pick cotton.

Reached by telephone at his home in France, where he has lived for three years with his wife, cartoonist Aline Kaminsky, and their daughter, Sophie, Crumb expressed surprise that his strips are appearing in a racist publication.

"This is the first I've heard about it," Crumb said, emphasizing that the wild, fictional stories do not represent his views. "Some people don't get satire. To me, it shows how stupid those people (neo-Nazis) are."

Crumb said he knew the stories might be misinterpreted. "I was sweating when I was doing them. I thought, `Some people are going to take it literally.' I always have gone close to that line."

Still, as an artist, Crumb said he felt compelled to write and draw the disturbing tales as a means of purging lingering racist toxins.

"An idea like that just comes to me in a flash," said Crumb, who came to fame as R. Crumb in the late 1960s and is the subject of a critically praised new documentary, "Crumb," by San Francisco filmmaker Terry Zwigoff.

"I release all that stuff inside myself: taboo words, taboo ideas. It pours out of me as sick as possible. I wouldn't put it in a comic for children. But I don't work that mainstream audience."

Crumb said he has no plans to sue the fringe group that has appropriated his stories. "I wouldn't contemplate having anything to do with them," he said.

"That these people would take this stuff seriously . . ." Crumb's voice trailed off. "It's unbelievable what's out there in the world."